-Leslie (Lili Taylor) in Casa de los Babys
TOP 100 FILMS OF ALL TIME
No. 89: CASA DE LOS BABYS
(John Sayles, 2003)
I’m a big fan of the fiercely independent American director John Sayles, my favorite being Lone Star. Managed to find a copy of the terrific Casa de los Babys. In a Latin American country, six American women seeking to adopt a child, wait a long time for their paperwork to go through. That’s the simple line of it.
But it’s not just about these mothers. There’s the owner of the hotel, her activist son, there’s a housekeeper, the lawyer taking care of the paperwork, a street urchin, an unemployed man, all part of the story. And John Sayles lays out these stories of motherhood, of a superior power taking advantage of a weaker country, of poverty, of longing; all of this with no judgment, no sentimentality, and it rings of truth.
In this scene, Eileen, a British woman, talks to Asuncion the housekeeper, as Asuncion cleans her room in the motel Casa de los Babys. Eileen is in the middle of telling her fantasies of having a daughter. Asuncion doesn’t speak a word of English. Eileen knows only basic Spanish words. Neither woman really understand each others words, but they communicate on a deeper level.
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Eileen: …And then later, when I take her to Shakey’s or Ground Round, whatever seems like a big treat to her, and I let her order french fries, as long as she has some of my soup too, and she tells me stories about her classmates, or she tells me stories that she’s made up, or whatever. We sit and we talk in the booth. And we’re surrounded by other mothers and their kids. And I am just one of them, you know? And then later when we walk home from wherever I can park the car, there is the sound of our feet on the new snow, her taking two steps to my one. Then maybe if they haven’t shoveled the walk, like they usually don’t, I go in front, to break the way for her. This is ignoring the fact that I am supposed to be at work, right? I’m the one with the job.
Asuncion listens. She sits on the edge of the bed, nodding. She speaks in Spanish.
Asuncion: I have a little girl up North. I named her Esmeralda. She’ll be four years old on the ninth of April. Maybe she lives where it snows, who knows? I was so young. I had to take care of my brother and sister. I had to work. The nuns, they came to see me. They said that it would be best to give her up.
Sometimes when a new group of mothers comes, I pick one. A good one. I try to imagine her face, her voice. When I think of Esmeralda with her other mother up there in the North, I hope that my little girl has found a mother like you.
Asuncion stands and leaves. Eileen looks at her.
Eileen: I didn’t get any of it, I’m sorry.
Asuncion: Excuse me.
